About book Getting Organized In The Google Era: How To Get Stuff Out Of Your Head, Find It When You Need It, And Get It Done Right (2010)
Love: GMail hacks. I need to try more of these. I still miss Google Health and Google Reader.Like: Go with what you know.Dislike: Author focuses on trying to off-load too much (I think) from our brains. There is all sorts of information out there that you can not tell if it is relevant or will be relevant. Put more stuff in your brain, get more incites. Hate: Too much Apple focus. Yes it is what the author uses the most. Apple products are solid working products, and I recommend them all the time to non-techies (because they are really hard to break), but I want to test/experiment with everything (though I keep at least one system pristine to do my work on).One of my biggest issues is finding adequate time to test new organizational tools and apps. How long do I test to see if it truly offers me a new feature that I can use or solves an issue with the tools I am currently using.I strongly agree that Google Calendar is the best. Each member of my family has a separate google calendar. My wife and IO then have a joint calendar (birthdays and anniversaries). We can each link to that. I used to be able to link my work calendar to my personal one. We link appropriate school, community and organizational calendars to our personal calendars, and then link each others.It's great! “Getting Organized In The Google Era: How To Get Stuff Out Of Your Head, Find It When You Need It, And Get It Done Right” by Douglas C. Merrill, former Chief Information Officer of Google, is an interesting look at using technology to organize things a bit differently than the traditional way organization has always been taught. The author explains why, and then provides the tools and way to do it. I liked some of the ideas quite a bit, and others I might have to become a little more of a “techie” to fully embrace. The author did have a chapter that discussed the benefits of using paper for some things, which made me glad, since I sure have not gone paperless.As a former Google CIO, Merrill obviously embraces Google technology, and recommends it for various reasons. However, not everything is Google oriented. He uses and recommends other programs and sources as well. The first few chapters discuss organization and goals a bit differently than I've seen before and I felt the author made sense and some very good points. The next chapters on how to organize presented a new concept for most organization books, and that is the search function we have on computers. It doesn't matter how things are organized if you can use the search function and find what you need. After all, why do we organize? So we can find things when we need it. Merrill teaches that if you know how to search effectively, you can find what you need, and that is the key to new organization. Again, I did like that he put a chapter in here that discusses the uses of paper, but I'm still not entirely convinced on all of the computer and paperless applications. (But for those who are more paperless, this book provides great examples and will reinforce your choices to work in the cloud.) There is a long section on why the author believes Gmail is the best way to go for e-mail. The final part includes chapters that deal with stress and brain overload, as well as dealing with the unexpected. And finally a chapter on putting it all together and recommended tools by the author (many by Google, but many others too.)The book is easy to read and understand, and each chapter ends with summary points of the key takeaways from the chapter. Offices and the way we do things, as well as the amount of information we deal with, as changed with all of our technological advanced. It only makes sense that there should be new ways to organize all we deal with. This book provides guidance and tools to help you get organized in this new technology filled, or “Google” era.
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A should-read book on how to be productive in your job as your manage your career.
—Sonny
